


Fades Spirits Like to Put on Shows

by danceswithhamsters01



Series: Reddit Prompts [47]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age: Inquisition Quest - Here Lies the Abyss, Duncan Conscripts a Recruit, Fade spirits put on a historical reenactment, Gen, Squabbling, The Fade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 11:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18387410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danceswithhamsters01/pseuds/danceswithhamsters01
Summary: Based on a prompt from r/dragonage.Eylarra Trevelyan, Ava Hawke, Warden Stroud, and company find themselves in the Fade. When they pause for a moment, the Fade spirits decide to reenact a scene from recent history for the party.





	Fades Spirits Like to Put on Shows

_**Prompt 5** Solas states that the spirits in the Fade recreate moments from the real world (Example: The Battle at Ostagar) Your Inquisitor, while in the Fade at a specific place, witnesses one of these scenes- Pick a moment from one of the prior games, and have the Inquisitor and their companions react to what they see the spirits act out. (Examples: Duncan’s recruitment of the Warden, Hawke _and _Flemeth meeting,_ a recruitment _of a companion, a simple task of Hawke or the Warden helping someone, etc, etc,)_

 

Eylarra took a moment to catch her breath. It wouldn’t do for them to see the Inquisitor lose herself to a fit of panic. She stood there taking deep breaths while the rest of their group either stood slack-jawed or looked around warily. She surveyed their surroundings: swirling stormy green skies overhead and rocky ruins and weathered stone around them.

 

Sera was the first to say anything. “Shitballs, fuck, shit, crap, fade, shit, arse, demons, crap!”

 

“The Fade itself is reacting to our presence here, much more strongly than I have ever seen before. Perhaps it is because we are here physically, instead of simply visiting it in dreams.” Vivienne pondered aloud. “Don’t linger, my dear, I think the spirits dislike being unmasked.”

 

“This place is dangerous. I will gladly fight demons, but I have no desire to see where they come from.” Blackwall added his two bits, a tiny hint of fear betraying the bravery he tried to make his deep voice convey.

 

Stroud and Hawke exchanged looks and hopped down from the walls they were standing perpendicularly upon. The Warden spoke up. “In our world, the rift the demons came through was nearby, in the main hall. Can we escape the same way?”

 

Eylarra found her breath and voice and managed to stuff most of her panic into a rather cramped closet in the back of her mind. Fear was the enemy. Fear was always the enemy. She could not allow it to take control, not now, not here, not ever. She looked up at the swirling rift in the sky. “It beats waiting around for demons to find us, right?”

 

The group trudged for a time toward the rift. For all their walking and fighting demons along the way, it seemed they got no closer than when they’d first set out. Eventually, they found themselves in a small circular area. A writing desk sat on one side, with a lit candle floating over its surface, a forgotten page of parchment written in a language Lady Trevelyan could not read, a quill that’d seen better days, and a dried out inkwell pot. A handful of bookcases stood around the round room. One lay on its side, with all of the tomes it held miraculously staying in place. Another floated several hand-spans above the rocky ground.

 

Vivienne narrowed her eyes as she read the title on one book’s spine aloud. “ _Disorientation for the Dimwitted_? That’s something by Enchanter Candlewick. His works were more remedial, something you’d give to an apprentice who’s a bit… slow.”

 

The room shimmered around them. Gone was the room and its trappings, along with the rocky terrain and endless green stormy sky. The sensation of fear, desperation, and determination hummed in the air and teased the senses of the gathered mortals. When the area came into focus again, they were looking at the inside of a tower. Several figures slowly came into focus.

  


There were two older men; one man with a fluffy silver beard in green mage’s robes with ornate embroidery on it, denoting a high rank. The other was a man with a salt-and-pepper mane and neatly trimmed beard in templar armor with the pauldrons that denoted the rank of Commander. Standing in front of the men was a trio of young adults: two women and a hawk-nosed man. The blonde woman wore the robes of a Chantry Sister, while her companions were in lower-ranking mage robes. The woman mage was easily the smallest of the trio. Judging from the expression on the bearded mage’s face, he was very disappointed in the small mage. It was apparent to the visitors that they’d dropped into the scene mid-conversation.

  


“You don’t care about mages! You just bow to the Chantry’s whims!” the younger man said. He had a fire in his eyes as if speaking his truth to power.

Several templars came up from behind the older men, swords drawn. The Commander pointed to the defiant young man. “I sentence this blood mage to death. As for the initiate, take her away to Aeonar, she has scorned her vows.”

A voice that seemed far too big for the size of the woman it came out of shook the air. “NO! I WON’T LET YOU TAKE THEM!” It had been the smaller woman mage. She pushed her way out from behind the young man and put herself in front of him and the Sister.

Before the templars could advance, one was paralyzed in a glowing white rune on the floor, two more were frozen in place by a thick layer of ice engulfing their boots, and another was sent screaming in terror by something only he could see. A valiant effort, but it wasn’t enough. The Commander pointed his weapon at the mage and uttered a word. An unseen force choked off her magic and sent her to her knees, clutching her ears in agony as tears of pain poured down her cheeks.

“I told you from the very start that taking her on was a mistake, Irving. But you would not listen. Instead, you took a decent healer and filled her head with foolish notions of trying to be a war-mage. Now she pays the price,” the Commander said.

“NO! Don’t you dare hurt her!” her mage companion yelled out in fury and slit his palm with the small blade he’d kept hidden in his sleeve. As the blood trickled, a shockwave flew out from before him and knocked the entire room from their feet.

A hushed argument erupted between him and the Sister. Eventually, he fled alone. Slowly, the rest of the room came back around and crawled to their feet. The elder mage crawled over to the younger one and tried to shake her awake, but she proved unresponsive. He leveled a glare at the Commander’s back and murmured a small healing spell. She returned to the realm of the waking, dread overtaking her features as she recalled the most recent goings-on.

The Commander strode over to the younger mage and pointed his weapon at her with a snarl. “Sevarra Amell, for aiding a maleficar and attacking templars engaged in their sacred duties, I sentence you to the rite of Tranquility.”

 

Another man, one with a mahogany complexion who wore black and blue leather armor emblazoned with griffon heraldry, stepped out of the shadows. “I am afraid I cannot allow you to do that, Knight-Commander. That particular mage is spoken for. I was promised a recruit in my correspondence with the First Enchanter.”

 

The Knight-Commander’s eyes narrowed as they turned to the elder mage, apparently the First Enchanter. “You did WHAT?! You promised him a new Grey Warden?! Why was I not informed of such an agreement?”

 

“Duncan, she has aided a maleficar and shown a lack of regard for the Circle’s rules,” the First Enchanter said gravely.

 

“It is a rare person who risks all for a friend in need. I will recruit her.”

 

“I will not allow it! She must answer for the crimes she has committed!” the Knight-Commander fumed.

 

“Then you leave me no choice,” the Warden said as he openly put a hand on the hilt of the weapon sheathed at his hip and took Sevarra by the wrist. “I hereby invoke the Right of Conscription upon this mage. I will take full responsibility for her actions.”

 

The Warden and the Knight-Commander stood staring at each other as if each were daring the other to act first. After what felt like the world’s longest handful of heartbeats, the templar backed down and sheathed his weapon. He sighed with disgust.

 

“Fine. But only because the Crown recognizes your right to do so. Get her out of my sight.”

 

“Come, your new life awaits,” the Warden said to the young mage as he led her toward the massive doors that would take them out of the tower and to the world at large.

 

The scene faded from view. The group exchanged confused glances. Eylarra bit her lip. The scene had jogged her memory about a conversation she’d had in Haven with Solas.

 

“What was that?” Sera asked.

 

“It was the spirits of this place, re-enacting a moment from our world. Solas told me they do things like that, in places that witnessed significant events. At least, that’s what I think it was,” the Inquisitor replied.

 

“Bloody templars. They think they own mages. They would’ve butchered my cousin’s mind just for trying to help her friend! No wonder she was so leery of letting any of them join her ranks.” Hawke spat, her features doing nothing to hide the fury she felt.

 

“The Knight-Commander was merely doing his duty. The Circle and Chantry have laws about magic for very good reasons, my dear,” Vivienne replied. “The ‘friend’ she was trying to ‘help’ quite obviously used blood magic.”

 

“Because he was trying to protect her!” Ava Hawke shot back with a glare.

 

“And which of them was foolish enough to attack templars first, hmm?” came the enchanter’s cool reply.

 

“You know what? Take that attitude of yours and shove it! I have a sister and several other cousins who are or were mages! My family spent years on the run to keep my sister safe from monsters like him! Do you want to know what ‘horrible’ crime my cousin Daylen Amell committed that made the templars decide that he needed to be made tranquil? Do you?”

 

Madame de Fer glared and turned away.

 

“Daylen’s crime was that he kept requesting to be transferred to the same Circle they’d taken his husband to, or to be allowed to serve a noble family that was located in the same city. He didn’t turn to blood magic, he didn’t attack anyone, he didn’t try to run away. All he wanted was to be _transferred_. Even YOU of all people should be able to see the injustice of that!”

 

Blackwall coughed loudly. “I enjoy a spirited debate as much as the next person, but standing around here arguing over things that are in the past isn’t going to help us escape this place. No disrespect meant, m’ladies.”

 

“Quite right, Warden Blackwall. Let’s get out of this place,” Eylarra said and began picking her way toward what looked like a hilly incline. Perhaps it would get them closer to the rift taunting them from above.

 

“Can Wardens really do that, threaten people who get in the way of their recruiting?” Sera asked after several minutes spent trudging up the grey hills.

 

“Yes,” Stroud answered gravely, “if the need is pressing enough. We prefer not to do so, but sometimes our hands are forced. We cannot allow for petty concerns to prevent us from fighting the Blight and destroying darkspawn. Commander Duncan was in an unenviable position; he was trying to rebuild an order in a country that had banished us from its borders for centuries and a Blight was less than a month from taking place. If we did not take what we need to do our duties, many more innocents would suffer at the hands of darkspawn.”

 

“I wonder if he ever knew he was recruiting his replacement?” Eylarra wondered out loud.

 

“A Commander’s replacement is usually his or her Constable. But the situation in Ferelden was… unique,” Stroud said.

 

“I wonder if he would’ve changed his mind about recruiting her if he could’ve foreseen that she’d recruit a man who’d start a war,” the enchanter said in a lazy tone that betrayed the barb hidden in it.

 

“Anders actions were his own. Don’t you dare drag her into this! She officially went on the record to condemn what he’d done and disavow any Warden involvement,” Ava shot back.

 

“Says the lover of said mass-murderer,” the mage sniffed.

 

“ENOUGH!” Eylarra snarled with fury, turning to face the group behind her. “All of this bickering and poking at each other’s sore spots is accomplishing NOTHING! We have a world to save, and to do that, we need to get the hell out of here! I suggest everyone take a deep breath, count to three, and fucking stop with the sniping! Do you understand me?!”

 

She glared first at Vivienne and then Hawke, each of the women averting their gazes and murmuring under their breath.

 

“I hope we’ve gotten that out of our system because it looks like we have company,” Blackwall said as he drew his blade and readied his shield.

 

The skittering and shrieking calls of giant spiders grew louder as the fiends crawled over the rocks and ruined remains of buildings toward the mortals. At least smashing monsters to pieces would mean they’d be spared from listening to squabbling for a little while.


End file.
